Dr. Kaveh L. Afrasiabi on Shock and Awesome

For the entire interview: http://www.eastvillageradio.com/newspageshows/ShockandAwesomeInterview061909.mp3.m3u

We asked Dr. Afrasiabi, renowned Iranian political scientist and Ahmadinejad supporter, what makes the re-elected president so popular?

 “A few months before the elections, Ahmadinejad increased the salaries of government employees, teachers and so forth. Ahmadinejad is a son of a blacksmith who lives in a mortgaged home, drives a used car and has a tremendous reputation as anti-corrupt.”

“It’s Mr. Ahmadinejad who’s holding the flag of anti-corruption, so it’s one of the ironies and complexities of what we’re witnessing in Iran today.”

If this is the majority of Iranians' view of Ahmadinejad, why is it that the Western media only chooses to label him as a Holocaust-denying nuke-toting tyrant? Afrasiabi goes on to say:

“Deliberate efforts on the part of some folks, neo-cons in Washington and the right-wing government, are to demonize Iran and to scapegoat Iran because it serves them a purpose. Israel right now is facing a crisis over the Palestinian issue. So by linking the two and saying that we won’t negotiate on Palestinian issues as long as there’s no resolution on the Iranian nuclear stand off, Mr. Netanyahu and company take advantage and exploit this situation because it’s to their benefit of deflecting attention from their own internal crisis with the Arabs.”

Regardless of these issues, Afrasiabi agreed that the Iranian government must respond to these protests:

“I really think that right now all of this massive political rupture, the government has come to the point that it needs to address all these pent up feelings and frustrations as far as the Iranian youth and women and so forth that have led to the political alienation from the system. I’m anticipating a kind of incremental shift on the government’s part whereby some of these restrictions that we have seen with the morality police would be relaxed. Some of the elements of the reformists' demands … would be renewed. “

When asked if the Iranians can come up with any chants that don’t start with “death to,” Afrasiabi responding by saying, “People are angry right now. They think that they are being oppressed and that’s how they express their feelings.”

He concluded by saying, beyond this, it is, “more than the slogans. What’s really important is to address the underlying root cause of the discontent by the government.”